Experimental Philosophy

Deterministic beliefs promote endorsement of paternalism

Whether the state is justified in reducing self-inflicted harm by limiting people's freedom is subject to sustained philosophical debate and disagreement among the public. On one side, proponents of paternalistic regulation emphasize its net benefits for social welfare. On the other, its critics denounce, as a matter of principle, the idea that the state could interfere in citizens’ personal choices:

Photo credit: @TheResident

My favorite depiction of this sentiment (a remnant of the soda ban controversy) is a Statue of Liberty-styled silhouette raising the allegorical soda cup, next to the motto “Don’t let bureaucrats tell you what size beverage to buy.”

What underlies the conviction that personal autonomy should be protected even at substantial costs to one's health? Perhaps, we reasoned, it is sustained in part by the assumption that, barring bureaucrats' overreach, we'd be choosing freely. 

Indeed, data from 3184 US adults who took part in a survey by the Pew Research Center showed that an internal locus of control was linked to a libertarian view of government (“It’s not the government’s job to protect people from themselves”) while an external locus predicted endorsement of a paternalistic state (“Sometimes laws to protect people from themselves are necessary”), and this association was independent of political ideology.

The influence of a deterministic worldview

To hone in on the role of free will and determinism beliefs, we asked students to complete the FAD Plus Scale and rate a variety of proposed policies, ranging from strong paternalistic restrictions (e.g., banning cigarettes) to libertarian deregulation (e.g., eliminating public pension). The belief in scientific determinism was associated with a stronger preference for paternalistic legislation, particularly in the form of nudges and opt-out programs. (No relationship was found with the Free Will subscale, unexpectedly.)

In another study, participants were asked to imagine living in a hypothetical nation within either a deterministic or indeterministic world, and evaluated one of two sets of policy proposals, paternalistic or libertarian in kind. As shown below, paternalistic policies were rated more favorably in a deterministic universe, while libertarian policies revealed the opposite pattern:

Median and IQR of policy ratings.

In light of recent interest on behalf of government in nudging people toward better decisions, our study underscores the value of philosophical reflection on behavioral science. Adopting a deterministic worldview renders paternalistic regulation more agreeable, perhaps by challenging the folk notion of personal autonomy.

We look forward to your comments and reactions. The article is available online at the link below:

Hannikainen, I., Cabral, G., Machery, E., & Struchiner, N. A deterministic worldview promotes approval of state paternalism, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, in press. [preprint]

The Folk Concept(s) of Choice

Aneyn O'Grady and I have new research on the folk concept of choice that was recently published in Consciousness and Cognition, What kinds of alternatives are required for the folk concept(s) of choice. I thought that the research may be of interest to readers here. We would love to hear your thoughts.

Abstract

Our concept of choice is integral to the way we understand others and ourselves, especially when considering ourselves as free and responsible agents. Despite the importance of this concept, there has been little empirical work on it. In this paper we report four experiments that provide evidence for two concepts of choice—namely, a concept of choice that is operative in the phrase having a choice and another that is operative in the phrase making a choice. The experiments indicate that the two concepts of choice can be differentiated from each other on the basis of the kind of alternatives to which each is sensitive. The results indicate that the folk concept of choice is more nuanced than has been assumed. This new, empirically informed understanding of the folk concept of choice has important implications for debates concerning free will, responsibility, and other debates spanning psychology and philosophy.

Specifically, 'having a choice' appears to require genuinely open alternatives, or alternative possibilities that are actually realizable, while 'making a choice' appears to only require psychological open alternatives, or the ability to consider alternatives independent of whether these alternatives are actually realizable. We argue that these findings are relevant to the free will debate because choice is central to the folk concept of free will and many philosophical analysis of free will. The kinds of alternatives required for having a choice appear to be incompatibilist in nature, while the kinds of alternatives required for making a choice appear to be compatibilist in nature. If free will requires having choices, then this is perhaps evidence against compatibilism. If free will requires making choices, then this is perhaps evidence in favor of--or at least consistent with--compatibilism. 

 

Knowledge of being manipulated does not affect moral responsibility. What?!

This past semester I was working with Fiery Cushman and an RA (Becca Ramos) on some studies on manipulation and moral responsibility and we ended up with some findings that I'm completely puzzled by, so I thought I'd see if you all have any ideas about them. (In case you want to read more on the background x-phi work on manipulation, you can find some of that: here, here, here, and here). 

One of the things I wanted to test was the intuitive idea that a critical aspect of being manipulated was not knowing that you were being manipulated. Intuitively, it seems like one is more responsible for doing an immoral action when you are aware that the environment has been set up so that you'll do that action. To test this basic idea, we designed a relatively simple study.

In one condition, the manipulated agent didn't know they were being manipulated:

In the 1950s, the government of a small Eastern European country plotted to secretly start a war, using industrial workers, and get revenge on a neighboring country. For the first part of their plan, the government intentionally destroyed farm machinery and set fire to several food stores on purpose. As a result, there was a serious lack of food in the country. Soon the people living in the city couldn't get enough food to feed themselves. The whole city shut down, crime skyrocketed and a small but violent uprising broke out.

The government knew their plan was working perfectly. Right at that time, a group of industrial workers heard on the government news channel that a neighboring village had a surplus of food. After hearing the news, the group of industrial workers raided the small village on the country's border, stealing food from the farmers and killing innocent people. The government had known this would happen all along and felt great about their successful plan.

In the other condition, the agent did know that they were being manipulated (differences in italics):

In the 1950s, the government of a small Eastern European country plotted to secretly start a war, using industrial workers, and get revenge on a neighboring village. For the first part of their plan, the government intentionally destroyed farm machinery and set fire to several food stores on purpose. As a result, there was a serious lack of food in the country. Soon the people living in the city couldn't get enough food to feed themselves. The whole city shut down, crime skyrocketed and a small but violent uprising broke out. The government knew their plan was working perfectly.

Not long after, a couple of the industrial workers were informed by some government employees about the government’s plan to use the workers to attack the neighboring village.

Right at that time, a group of industrial workers heard on the government news channel that a neighboring village had a surplus of food. After hearing the news, the group of industrial workers raided the small village on the country's border, stealing food from the farmers and killing innocent people. The government had known this would happen all along and felt great about their successful plan.

We also included a condition in which the agent was not being manipulated (the government had no intention for the workers to attack the village). We used five different scenarios in total. Each participant read a single vignette and then was asked whether they agreed or disagreed with a statement of the form:

• The workers should be blamed for the damage to the neighboring village. 

Here's the pattern of results we got:

 

Can We Have Free Will and Lack It Too?

This summer I read Shaun Nichols's excellent new book, Bound: Essays on Free Will & Responsibility (2015, OUP). It includes systematic discussion of the relevant experimental philosophy, as well other empirical research, and how this relates to the problem of free will and related topics (including responsibility and punishment).

I wrote a short (400-word) book note on Bound for the AJP (draft here), which prompted my further thinking and motivated a blog post. You can read a more detailed and comprehensive summary by Manuel Vargas in NDPR that raises some nice worries for Shaun. Here I'd like to summarize just one key component of Bound and raise a distinct worry for it (despite agreeing with many other claims made in the book).

This key component is Nichols's discretionary view. It states roughly that, assuming our actions probably are determined by the past and laws of nature, there are contexts in which it's true that we have free will but also contexts in which it's false. Can we really have our cake and lack it too?

 

Blackwell Companion to Experimental Philosophy

I am happy to announce a forthcoming new volume from the Blackwell Companions to Philosophy Series: A Companion to Experimental Philosophy. It is edited by Justin Sytsma and myself and features over forty chapters from leading philosophers, psychologists and cognitive scientists from several countries across three continents. These chapters detail the application of empirical methods to philosophical questions across major sub-disciplines including the philosophy of action, moral and political philosophy, philosophy of mind, epistemology, philosophy of language, metaphysics, logic, and metaphilosophy.

The general introduction to the volume is available online here, offering a summary of the goals of the volume and a brief introduction to experimental philosophy for a general audience. The table of contents and list of contributors can be found below:

Duke's Summer Seminars in Neuroscience and Philosophy

The Duke Philosophy Department is pleased to announce that professors Felipe De Brigard and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong have received a $1.8 million dollar grant from the John Templeton Foundation to conduct yearly Summer Seminars in Neuroscience and Philosophy (SSNAP) starting in May, 2016. Each SSNAP will be a 15 day long seminar in which neuroscientists and philosophers will learn about each other’s discipline, and will then form interdisciplinary teams to design and conduct studies founded by sub-awards. For further information please visit the SSNAP site.

Here are the relevant urls for the bits you may want to link to the announcement:

The url for Felipe De Brigard is: www.felipedebrigard.com
The url for Walter Sinnott-Armstrong is: http://sinnott-armstrong.com
The url for the philosophy department at Duke University is: http://philosophy.duke.edu
The url for the SSNAP site is: www.neuroscienceandphilosophy.com

p.s.  Congrats to Walter and Felipe!

X-Phi of Free Will in New Scientist Magazine

With a really nice piece about the recent paper by Eddy Nahmias, Jason Shepard and Shane Reuter. A big congratulations to the three of them!

experimental philosophy of manipulation

Josh Knobe recently prompted a discussion on Flickers about a forthcoming paper that offers a psychological explanation of why manipulation intuitively reduces the extent to which agents are blamed for doing immoral acts (full disclosure: I'm an author on that paper). 

Given that discussion, I thought it might also be worth mentioning the emerging experimental philosophy work on manipulation more generally. A number of people, including Dylan Murray, Tania Lombrozo, Eddy Nahmias and Oisin Deery, have already started working on the topic, and to me at least it seems like a really exciting moment where research in this area is starting to take off.

I'll start by giving you a basic sense of the specific effect that I focused on, but then will also try to point to the more general question that a growing number of people are interested in. The original effect is probably most easily demonstrated by example, so try considering this first case:

In the 1950s, the government of a small Eastern European country plotted to secretly start a war, using industrial workers, and get revenge on a neighboring country.  For the first part of their plan, the government intentionally destroyed farm machinery and set fire to several food stores on purpose. As a result, there was a serious lack of food in the country. Soon the people living in the city couldn't get enough food to feed themselves. The whole city shut down, crime skyrocketed and a small but violent uprising broke out.
    The government knew their plan was working perfectly. Right at that time, a group of industrial workers heard on the government news channel that a neighboring village had a surplus of food. After hearing the news, the group of industrial workers raided the small village on the country's border, stealing food from the farmers and killing innocent people. The government had known this would happen all along and felt great about their successful plan.

After reading that case, participants were asked whether they agreed or disagreed with the statement: 'The workers should be blamed for the attack on the village.'  

Now consider a case that differs in one critical way: the intentions of the manipulator.

Mele & Nahmias on Philosophy TV

Al Mele and Eddy Nahmias have an illuminating conversation about the relationship between free will and recent advances in neuroscience and social psychology in the latest episode of Philosophy TV. Here is the overview:

Mele and Nahmias start by explaining how they first became seriously interested in the relationship of free will to science. Then (12:44) they discuss the infamous Libet experiments, which are often interpreted as evidence that our conscious decisions are determined by earlier nonconscious brain activity, along with a range of other experiments in neuroscience that also bear on issues concerning human free agency. Next (25:31) they consider general worries that underlie neuroscientific investigations of free will. Then (41:28) they discuss whether (and how) results in social psychology could undermine free human agency. After that, they discuss future prospects for scientific investigation of free will (46:14), including Mele’s (exceptionally generous) Templeton-sponsored grants. They conclude (53:55) with some reflections on the definition of free will.

So, go check out what they have to say!

The Free-Will Intuitions Scale and the Question of Natural Compatibilism

Hot on the heels of Nadelhoffer and colleagues' recent Free Will Inventory (FWI), I'd like to announce publication of the Free-Will Intuitions Scale (FWIS), which my colleagues Taylor Davis and Jasmine Carey and I have developed over the past few years. "The Free-Will Intuitions Scale and the Question of Natural Compatibilism" is now published online with Philosophical Psychology. You can find it here and here. We hope X-Phiers will consider using both these scales when conducting their future research on free-will intuitions.